Communications of the ACM

THE DEFENSE ADVANCED Re- search Projects Agency launched the ARPANET project in 1968 and the In- ternet project in 1973.

In 1980, the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored the development of CSNETa to connect a number of computer science departments together that had not already been connected to the ARPANET. Using a mix of dial-up phone connections, public X. 25 packet network services, and access to the ARPANET, the CSNET was the programmatic forerunner of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET).

The NSFNET project had an enormous influence on the evolution of the Internet. The 1985 NSFNET connected five NSF-sponsored supercomputer centers together in a 56

kilobit/second network.b A critical and controversial decision made by NSF was to use the TCP/IP protocols for the NSFNET backbone. Then, the International Organization for Standardization’s Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocolsc were widely thought to be the direction for international computer networking.

By 1987, this networkd had become congested and NSF began a new 1.5

megabit/second development in

1988 through a consortium led by MERIT,e IBMf and MCI,g which would later yield operation to the non-profit organization, Advanced Networks and Servicesh (ANS).

a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSNET
b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_router
c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
National_Science_Foundation_Network
e www.merit.edu
f www.ibm.com
g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
MCI_Communications
h https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_
Network_and_Services
Taking advantage of the multi-
network architecture of the Internet,
NSF underwrote the creation of eight
regional networksi that would ser-
vice some 4,000 universities in the
U.S. and connect them to the NSF-
NET backbone. In addition, NSF ini-
tiated an International Connections
program to underwrite the cost of
international links between NSFNET
and other research networks around
the world.

Also in 1988, the U.S. Federal Research Internet Coordinating Council approved the interconnection of the commercial MCI Mail systemj with the NSFNET, allowing commercial traffic to flow on the U.S. Government-sponsored backbones, including ARPANET, NSFNET, the Department of Energy’s ESNETk and NASA’s NSINET.l Federal Internet Exchange (FIX) points were created to link these networks to one another.

By 1989, three commercial Internet backbone suppliers emerged: UUNET,m Performance Systems International (PSINETn) and the California Education and Research Federation Networko (CERFnet) and they were interconnected to each other by their Commercial Internet Exchange analog of the Federal versions and were also connected to the NSFNET.

Traffic grew dramatically and the NSFNET backbone was upgraded to

45Mb/s in 1992. The next year, the
High Performance Computing and
High Performance Networking Ap-
i BARRNet, Merit, MIDnet, NCAR, NorthWest-
Net, SESQUINE T, SURAnet, and Westne
j https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCI_Mail
k http://es.net/
l https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.

nasa.gov/19910017727.pdf
m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUNET
n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSINet
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERFnet
plications Act of 1993p was passed
which incorporated provision for
commercial traffic transiting the U.S.

Government backbones. By 1994, it was becoming apparent that commercial networking was rapidly developing. NSF sponsored the creation of four Network Access Pointsq (NAP) setting the stage for the termination of the NSFNET by interconnecting all the intermediate level networks to the NAPs and thus remaining interconnected to each other. The notion of NAPs evolved to become Internet eXchange Points (IXP) where many component networks could interconnect with each other and the larger Internet.

In 1995, the NSFNET backbone was retired. Its network research support functions were taken over by the Very High Speed Broadband Network Service (vBNS) operated by MCI and by Internet2, an academic consortium.r NSF continues its vigorous support for network research to this day, spinning off new technologies leading to new commercial networking offerings. We collectively owe much to the foresight and nuanced decisions taken by the leadership of NSF’s Computer, Information Systems and Engineering Directorates (CISE) and its Division of Computer and Network Systems.

p https://www.ibiblio.org/nii/boucher.html
q one in New York operated by Sprint, one in
Washington, D.C. operated by MFS, one in
Chicago operated by Ameritech, and one in
California operated by Pacific Bell.